Chevy Volt
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It's the green ideal: Charging an electric car or plug-in hybrid using electricity generated purely from the sun. But it's not fiction; a handful of large, multi-space solar carports are popping up in areas as diverse as Silicon Valley, New York City, Detroit, and Tennessee. The latest one, unveiled last week, sits outside the headquarters of GE Energy in Plainville, Connecticut. It's a long V-shaped shelter with 40 parking space, six electric vehicle charging stations (made by GE, of course), and 425 solar panels on top. Theoretically, the facility could produce enough energy to power 20...
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Are Volt Dealers Really Pocketing Federal Rebates? Maybe Not
It doesn’t take a scientist to figure out that the 2011 Chevrolet Volt is in high demand right now--despite its May sales numbers, which are behind those of the 2011 Nissan Leaf. But despite General Motors’ planned increase in production, buying the plug-in hybrid is a little more...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Nissan Doubles Leaf Sales, Volt Stays Steady: Some Perspective, Please
Sigh. Here we go again. It's the first of the month, which means that auto journalists are scrambling to put together their monthly sales reports. Sales in May weren't great, for a variety of reasons: higher prices and shortages of some Japanese models, among others. Unusual scrutiny But the most...
John Voelcker -
Earth Day: Eager Electric-Car Advocates Meet Unaware Public
Three weeks ago, in a suburban park in Roseville, California--just outside the state capital, Sacramento--a community celebration of Earth Day served as a gathering of the greenest cars now available. Both participants and random park-goers were drawn to the cars, providing a chance for eager...
George Parrott -
Is GM’s U.S. Boss Scared By The 2011 Nissan Leaf Electric Car?
You’d hardly expect Mark Reuss, the North American President of General Motors, to be a fan of the primary rival to the company's 2011 Chevrolet Volt. But in a recent interview with the Nashville Business Journal, the man responsible for starting the GM Performance Division took his dislike...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
The Father Of 'Christine' Likes His Chevy Volt Electric Car
Who knew? Stephen King, creator of perhaps the most malevolent car ever envisioned--Christine, the homicidal 1958 Plymouth Fury of both novel and movie fame--is an electric car fan. In particular, he loves the family's 2011 Chevrolet Volt, the range-extended electric vehicle that plugs in to...
John Voelcker -
Sales of plug-in electric cars continued at a steady pace in April, with 493 Chevrolet Volts and 573 Nissan Leafs sold during the month. That brings yearly totals of the cars to 1,703 and 1,025 respectively. There were also 326 Volts and 19 Leafs sold last December, the month in which each car first went on sale. The first Leaf was delivered on December 12, followed three days later by the first Volt. Each month since then, Chevy has sold more Volts than Nissan has Leafs. This is the first month in which Leaf sales, at 573, slightly exceeded Volt sales, at 493. Chevrolet had warned that its...
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Chevy Volt Goes North For 2012, Priced At C$41,545 In Canada
With Chevrolet on track to complete its rollout of the 2011 Volt range-extended electric car to all 50 states by the end of this year, the carmaker is turning its sites to other countries. And it's starting next door in one of the two closest foreign countries to the U.S., one right on our border...
John Voelcker -
Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf Get Top IIHS Crash-Safety Ratings
Among the many things that confuse or worry potential buyers of plug-in electric cars is whether they'll be safe. One concern is car washes or even deep pools of water, but another is whether the battery pack will be damaged or dangerous in an accident. Well, now you can chalk that last one off the...
John Voelcker -
Electric Cars: How They Work, What You Need To Know (Video)
Driving the 2011 Chevrolet Volt leads all sorts of people to ask you questions: passers-by, the guy at the parking garage...and sometimes, even museums. A few weeks ago, we had a Chevy Volt for review. At the time, we were asked by the Forward Thinking Museum in Manhattan not only to show its staff...
John Voelcker -
Elon Musk, Bob Lutz On Red Carpet At 'Revenge of Electric Car' Premiere
Every movie has to have a premiere, and every premiere has to have a red carpet. When the red carpet is on a Manhattan sidewalk, with plenty of passers-by stopping to gawk, and many of the celebs are arriving in electric cars, things get a little more complicated. Still, last night's premiere of...
John Voelcker -
Electric-Car Fire: Flaming Garage Shows Media Ignorance
A garage caught fire, destroying the two cars inside. That's what we know. One of the cars inside was a brand-new 2011 Chevrolet Volt, and the other was a home-converted electric car. But because of that, what we've gotten from various media is inaccurate at best, and potentially quite misleading...
John Voelcker -
Last week, the Associated Press distributed a video report called "Are Electric Cars Worth the Price?" (It's embedded at the bottom of this article.) The video featured this author as an example of someone who owns both the 2011 Nissan Leaf and the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, and it included commentary from Eric Evarts, a staffer at Consumer Reports. Among other comments, Evarts concluded that "electric cars are not good value at this time, and are really only for early adopters." Immediately after seeing the report, I called Eric at his Consumer Reports office and we chatted for about 30 minutes. I...
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Plug-In Hybrid MPGs: Is Parallel or Range-Extended Better?
These are exciting times to be a car shopper, as the choices in every possible category just keep getting better and more fuel-efficient. The options for ecologically sensitive hybrid buyers have taken a major step forward with the introduction of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and the imminent arrival of...
George Parrott -
BMW Hires Lead Electric-Car Engineer From Chevy Volt Team
Not so long ago, the notion of luxury German brand BMW hiring an engineer from General Motors might have been a stretch. The company prefers to promote engineers from within its Munich engineering headquarters. But reports that Frank Weber, the lead engineer of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt team, has...
John Voelcker -
Is Obama's Goal of 1 Million Plug-In Cars By 2015 Feasible?
Since 2008, Barack Obama has consistently promoted the goal of having 1 million advanced technology vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015. The number refers to plug-in vehicles that use grid power, stored in lithium-ion battery packs, to operate their electric traction motors. Regular hybrids like the...
John Voelcker -
Chevy Volt Outsells Nissan Leaf Again: March Electric Car Sales
The 2011 Chevy Volt continues to outsell the 2011 Nissan Leaf, but during March, the Japanese battery electric car at last started to move noticeable numbers of cars--almost five times as many as it sold in February. The two major-manufacturer plug-ins currently on the market sold a total of 906...
John Voelcker -
VIDEO: Will Electric Cars Like The Chevy Volt Save You Money?
The problem with shooting video is that there's always one thing you forget to say until the camera's gone. Especially if it's low-budget and done on the fly. That's when the onscreen talent tends to forget to qualify some of the things they say. Like, for instance, this discussion of the unlikely...
John Voelcker -
General Motors and its brand strategies have been through a lot of turmoil in recent years. Now, GM is down to just four brands in North America--Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac--and is rapidly taking Chevrolet global, including its Malibu midsize model. Buick survived only because of its strong appeal in China, and is being repositioned in North America as a near-luxury competitor to Lexus. Chevy to Opel to Buick Now comes word that Buick may get what can only be described as a badge-engineered version of the Chevrolet Volt, via its Opel Ampera clone sold in Europe. [UPDATE: GM spokesman...
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2011 Chevrolet Volt: Quick Drive Impressions
The 2011 Geneva Motor Show has come and gone and was a real treat for electric car fans. Not only could you get close to cars like the 2011 Nissan Leaf and smart fortwo electric drive, but some were even available to test. One of the cars attracting a lot of attention was the 2011 Chevrolet Volt...
Antony Ingram -
Leave Your 2011 Chevy Volt On Overnight? Not Much Bad Happens
You don't start the engine in a 2011 Chevrolet Volt. Instead, you "power up" the car by pressing a button with the universal computer power symbol on it. Once the Volt has gone through its bootup routine, complete with tones and chimes, the button glows blue and you're ready to roll on electric...
John Voelcker -
Little Lotus Range-Extending Engine For Electric Cars Proves Popular
Most car buyers haven't even heard the term "range extender" yet. But over time, expect it to become more familiar, as electric cars like the 2011 Chevrolet Volt introduce the concept of a gasoline engine that turns a generator to produce electricity to power the vehicle. Tiny, powerful, efficient...
John Voelcker -
Chevy Volt Price-Gouging Pushes Buyer Into Honda Insight Hybrid
For all the media furor over the 2011 Nissan Leaf and the 2011 Chevy Volt, you'd think that tens of thousands of them were flooding onto our streets each month. Not so. As of Feb 28, the total sold between both cars was just 1,102, made up of 928 Volts and 174 Leafs. Now, it may be that those...
John Voelcker -
2011 Chevrolet Volt Drive Review: Five Things We Don't Like
Some things about the 2011 Chevrolet Volt we liked, and there were a few that puzzled us. But GM's innovative range-extended electric car also has its share of annoyances. We found several features irritating, or (to be more diplomatic) perhaps not-quite-entirely-thought-through yet. That's...
John Voelcker